Abstract
This article points out the role of perceptions, hereafter referred to as 'civil- military culture', that German society holds about the German armed forces. Analysing the discourse in German newspapers concerning Bundeswehr missions abroad since the early 1990s, and the engagement in Afghanistan in particular, it is argued that options to use the military abroad were circumscribed mainly to humanitarian tasks.
This was so because German soldiers have been perceived in accordance with the official concept of a 'citizen in uniform', which has strong ethical implications, and consequently the Bundeswehr was seen as a humanitarian and rescue organisation. However, since the discourse in 2009 made it clear that the internalised civil-military culture no longer provides adequate guidance regarding how to approach a war-like situation such as that in Afghanistan, the entire German civil-military culture is challenged.